Books offer a substitute for peace. The joyful moment of sharing a book and talking with a loved one is empowering and builds the foundation for our social competence, self-esteem and mental well-being. This is true for any child, but for Ukrainian children who have just experienced trauma, it is especially important.
We build children's mental resistance
Through books we build mental resistance of young children. The studies have proven that:
- reading a book reduces stress level by 60% after only first 6 minutes of reading
- for children who read it is easier to build realtionships with others
- reading together regularly helps to work through traumas.
Every donation is a cotribution to the packages of books we give to refugee children, orphanes and foster children of social welfare centres.
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We are raising funds to distribute books for refugee children from Ukraine (and support Ukrainian publishers in the same time).
We want to offer them a moment of normality, warmth, closeness and peace.
Do you want to join us? Please support us and donate!
*illustration by Sophie Blackall
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Almost immediately after the war in Ukraine broke out we sprang into action to provide support for refugee children and Ukrainian publishers. That happened to be the beginning of our campaign, later called Books Give Refuge.
Our foundation began receiving email files of children’s books from Ukrainian publishers. Polish printers donated their services to print and distribute the books; publishers offered warehouse space and transportation. The next step was distributing books through Polish orphanages, day care centers, kindergartens, schools, libraries, and train stations where Ukrainian families are arriving, and, in some cases, sheltering for the short term.
We received numerous donations from all over the world, which lead us to supporting Ukrainian publishers with $155,000, to help them stay afloat throughout this crisis. During the war many of the country’s publishers, warehouses, printing houses, and bookstores have been destroyed by missiles, and most Ukrainian publishing professionals have been forced to flee.
Providing each refugee child in Poland with a book would require $1 million. As the war continues and the refugee crisis intensifies, donations have slowed significantly, even as the need increases. We need to change to a long-term, well thought-through strategy. We need financial support in order to make that happen, obviously, but my hopes are high that we will be able to do so.
Let’s give books to Ukrainian mothers in Poland!
I was invited to visit Poland in 2019 by Fundacja Powszechnego Czytania (Universal Reading Foundation), which engaged me in a series of lectures and workshops for literacy activists, teachers and pediatricians. I was very impressed by the foundation's remarkable dedication to promoting children’s success in school and later in life through reading. This is even more important for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Ukrainian children who are in Poland today: children witnessing disaster or war need their parents’ special attention, regular daily routines and soothing alternatives to the reality around them. One of the best cures is for parents to read to their children, if only for 10–15 minutes a few times a day. Let’s give books to Ukrainian mothers in Poland!
Barry Zuckerman MD
Professor and Chair Emeritus
Department of Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston Medical Center
Reach Out and Read co-founder
